Daniel 9 Study Notes

9:1 If Daniel was approximately fifteen when he went into captivity, he would have been about eighty-one years old at the time of this vision. The name Ahasuerus was probably a Persian royal title rather than a personal name. It refers to an ancestor of Cyrus the Great or Governor Gubaru (see note at 5:31), not Ahasuerus (485-465 BC), the king mentioned in the book of Esther (Est 1:1).

9:2 Although the book of Jeremiah was completed only a generation before the events described in Dn 9, Daniel already recognized it as Scripture. Jeremiah predicted that the desolation of Jerusalem would endure for seventy years (Jr 25:11-13; 29:10). Daniel calculated that since the first captives had been taken to Babylon in 605 BC, the seventy years were nearly complete.

9:3 Daniel’s prayer was with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes, three customary ways to express sorrow and contrition (Ezr 8:23; Neh 9:1; Est 4:1,3,16; Jb 2:12; Jnh 3:5-6).

9:4-19 In this section Daniel prayed to the Lord, using the Hebrew name Yahweh (translated “the Lord” in English). Since Daniel’s prayer emphasized the faithfulness of God, it was appropriate to use the name Yahweh because it was associated with the cov-enant-keeping nature of the God of Israel (Ex 6:2-8).

9:4 One who keeps his gracious covenant refers to the Abrahamic covenant in which God promised to preserve the Jewish people and provide them with a land (Gn 12:1-7; 15:18-21).

9:11 Daniel realized that it was Israel’s disobedience that resulted in God sending the nation into exile, as the law of Moses had warned (Lv 26:27-33; Dt 29:63-68).

9:17-18 Despite God’s justice in sending Israel into exile, Daniel appealed to God not on the basis of Israel’s righteous acts but on God’s abundant compassion. God’s forgiveness was an act of grace.

9:20 Even the great Daniel had sins to confess.

9:21 The angel Gabriel appears for a second time in Daniel (8:16), here called a man because he appeared in human form. Had the temple still stood, the time of the evening offering would have been between 3:00 and 4:00 p.m.

9:22-24 Seventy weeks probably refers to seventy periods of seven years, or 490 years, during which six objectives would be accomplished. The first three pertain to bringing rebellion . . . sin, and iniquity to an end. The final three relate to consummating prophetic events by bringing in a kingdom of everlasting righteousness, fulfilling vision and prophecy and setting apart the most holy place (lit “the holy of holies”), referring to a yet future, literal, millennial temple (cp. Ezk 40-48).

9:25 Those who advocate a symbolic interpretation of this verse identify it with Cyrus’s decree allowing the captives to return to their homeland (2Ch 36:22-23; Ezr 1:1-3) in 539-538 BC. Others hold a literal view of this verse and suggest that the starting point is Artaxerxes’s first decree in 457 BC (Ezr 7:11-26). Since neither of these decrees pertains to the restoration of Jerusalem, it is more likely that the decree that is the beginning point is Artaxerxes’s second decree in 444 BC, authorizing Nehemiah to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem (Neh 2:1-8). There will be a period of seven weeks of years (forty-nine years) followed by sixty-two weeks of years (434 years), making a total of sixty-nine weeks of years or 483 years from the decree until the coming of an Anointed One, the ruler. The starting point of the prophecy would have begun on Nisan 1 (March 5), 444 BC, followed by sixty-nine weeks of 360-day biblical/prophetic years or 173,880 days, and culminated on Nisan 10 (March 30), AD 33, the date of Jesus the Messiah’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Lk 19:28-40).

9:26 Several events are said to follow the seven weeks and the sixty-two weeks (or the sixty-nine weeks). First, the Anointed One would be cut off, a prediction of the death of the Messiah Jesus. Thus, the book of Daniel, written in the sixth century BC, predicted not only the precise date of the Messiah’s coming (v. 25) but also that the Messiah would be put to death some time before the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. This was fulfilled when Jesus was crucified in AD 33 (AD 30 according to some interpreters). Second, the people of the coming ruler would destroy the city of Jerusalem and the second temple. The “coming ruler” probably is a reference to the future ruler described as the little horn in Dn 7, also known as the beast or the antichrist. He is not said to be the one to destroy Jerusalem and the temple; rather, it is his people who will do it. Since Dn 7 clearly viewed this ruler as coming from the fourth major world power, or Rome, this prophecy predicts that the Romans would destroy Jerusalem, as they did in AD 70. Third, there appears to be a significant time gap from the end of the sixty-ninth week to the beginning of the seventieth week.

9:27 The final seven-year period, or the seventieth week, will begin when he (the coming prince) will make a firm covenant of peace with many in the leadership of Israel. Although some consider the prince to be Messiah, he is more accurately identified as the antichrist, who will desecrate the future temple and put a stop to worship there. This covenant is yet future and will mark the beginning of a time of oppression of the Jewish people called “a time of trouble for Jacob” (Jr 30:7) or the tribulation period (Mt 24:29; Mk 13:24). In the middle of the week, or after the first three and one-half years, the antichrist will break his covenant with Israel, leading to a time of unprecedented persecution of the Jewish people (Mt 24:21; Mk 13:19) and followers of Jesus (Rv 7:14) that will last for another three and one-half years (Dn 7:25; Rv 11:2-3; 12:14; 13:5). When the antichrist breaks his covenant, he will also put a stop to sacrifice in the rebuilt temple (7:25) and will commit the abomination of desolation (Mt 24:15), desecrating the temple and declaring himself to be God (2Th 2:4; Rv 13:5-7). The antichrist’s oppression and abominations will continue until God’s decreed destruction is poured out on the desolator (11:45; Rv 19:20).